Around the world there is a growing interest in the ways in which dying people are cared for, but there is little or no agreement on what ‘good death’ really means. With such fundamentals left unresolved, should we address the global challenge of end of life care around the world in a unified way, or… Continue reading →

I followed community palliative care volunteer Samina through a maze of narrow, crowded alleyways to visit the invisible world of Korail, Bangladesh’s secret slum. Home to an estimated 200,000 people, Korail remains largely uncharted territory. Mapping giants Google show no record of its existence, even though the slum’s population is greater than many UK cities.… Continue reading →

I wrote this article on curative and palliative care during a research visit to Bangladesh, and it was first published in Bengali newspaper Prothom Alo in February 2016. It is reproduced here with kind permission of the paper’s editors. Following the Bengali text is a version in English. চিকিৎসা এবং উপশম বিষয়ক এই লেখাটি আমি… Continue reading →

Approaching the podium at a recent global health colloquium, I spotted something which I hadn’t seen before: a tiny set of traffic lights designed to cue the speakers and help with their timing. As I stepped up it wasn’t the sight of this innovative time-keeping device but an awareness of the delegates, the global experts on palliative care… Continue reading →

As a medical anthropologist on the Wellcome Trust funded project Global Interventions at the End of Life, I am interested in community participation in palliative care. In our study we are investigating the transfer and translation of a range of end of life interventions, across cultures and settings. One of these is the Neighbourhood Networks in Palliative Care… Continue reading →

What puts the ‘public’ in public health palliative care? A flurry of men and women with name badges and conference bags over their shoulders could be seen in the corridor of the Bristol Marriot Hotel at the start of the 4th International Public Health and Palliative Care Conference. I found myself an empty seat in… Continue reading →

Studying end of life care in the global context poses particular challenges due to the diversity of cultural meanings and expectations surrounding death and dying in different global settings. With culturally specific ideas of the ‘good death’ and ‘bad death’, ‘end of life’ becomes a fascinating topic for me as an anthropologist. In a palliative… Continue reading →